"We have found," says Dr. Rhine, "that there is a ca­pacity for acquiring knowledge that transcends the sen­sory functions. This extra sensory capacity can give us knowledge certainly of objective and very likely of sub­jective states, knowledge of matter and most probably of minds."
Schubert is said to have told a friend that his own creative process consisted in "remembering a melody" that neither he nor anyone else had ever thought of before.
Many creative artists, as well as psychologists who have made a study of the creative process, have been impressed by the similarity of creative inspiration, sudden revelation, intuition, etc., and ordinary human memory.
Searching for a new idea, or an answer to a problem, is in fact, very similar to searching memory for a name you have forgotten. You know that the name is "there," or else you would not search. The scanner in your brain scans back over stored memories until the desired name is "recognized" or "discovered."